Vizag will act as growth engine for the entire State: Ambati Rambabu

Amaravati: A big debate is on in the state is on the proposal to have three capitals in the New Year. Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had himself hinted at a proposal to have Executive capital at Visakhapatnam, Legislative capital at Amravati and Judicial capital at Kurnool during his intervention in debate in the state Assembly recently.

Talking to The Hans India, YSRCP Sattenapalli MLA Ambati Rambabu said that the state government was treading a careful path on the issue before taking any final decision.

One of the reasons for taking Visakhapatnam into consideration as the possible new capital city was its potential to be the growth engine for overall development of Andhra Pradesh. According to the Chief Minister, there is no other city which is endowed with all parameters that are required for attracting investment, said Rambabu.

Vizag has many favourable factors compared with Amaravati, like sufficient housing, good environment, developed city, global destination by its natural tourism advantage, emerging financial capital of the state, hotels, roads, rail and air connectivity available, apart from having other minimum required infrastructure.

Rambabu said if Visakhapatnam becomes the hub of governance and Chief Minister starts functioning from there, it would help in giving a major boost to the state economy and would become possible to develop all the districts and regions in the state. It would also help in AP in competing with Hyderabad, he added.

He said the state can't afford to spend about Rs 1 lakh crore needed to develop Amaravati as world-class capital. "We should not forget that despite trying to showcase this place as the destination for investments, the then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu failed to attract investors," he said.

The previous government did not construct even a single permanent building at Amaravati in the last five years, he said while adding that even the few constructions, which were completed were just temporary buildings or transit buildings as Naidu says.

"Even road connectivity to the city could not be provided by the TDP government. After going through all these facts, the Chief Minister has mooted to shift the Executive capital," Rambabu explained.

Reacting to allegations of TDP leaders that the YSRCP leaders had indulged in insider trading, the YSRCP MLA stated that if that was true, then Jagan would have shifted the capital to Donakonda or Bollapalli.

The opposition parties, he said, have been making too much of noise though the government has not yet taken a final decision. It is still at the proposal stage and a final decision would be taken only after examining all factors in depth and after receiving the reports of expert committee, Boston Consulting Group and Cabinet sub-committee and after discussing the issue in Assembly as well.

The government has also to examine how to protect the interests of the farmers who had given 33,000 acre land under land pooling scheme, he said and added that one need not doubt the intentions of the government.